"Lead us to the sun that shines in the depths."
Nesteruk shook his head. "I don't know what that means."
"These aren't ‘the depths' to him," said Holg. "They're simply his home." He turned to the orc. "Do you know of any ‘sun'? Does the word mean anything to you?"
The boy snorted. "Of course. The sun is what lights the world. But not the edges of the world."
"Is that where we are now?" Kagur asked. "The edges of the world?"
"Yes," Nesteruk replied, in a tone that said, don't you people know anything?
"And what were you doing at the edge of the world all alone?" asked Holg.
Nesteruk hesitated, his brief display of adolescent condescension wilting. Kagur suspected that, like her own younger self and probably every other youth since time began, he'd ignored his elders' prohibitions and ventured where he wasn't supposed to go.
"Exploring," the orc said at length. "You can find things sometimes." He glanced at the white spot he'd been approaching when the insect snared him. It was a litter of gnawed and broken bones.
"Keep watching him," said Kagur to Holg. She turned to recover her shield and find her bow.
To her relief, the longbow appeared to have survived its fall undamaged. As she picked it up and examined it, she noticed Nesteruk eyeing it with something of the same fascination her sword had elicited.
Then something clicked overhead. Reminded of the danger, she, the boy, and Holg made a hasty exit from the pit before the surviving insects could rally for a second attack.
Once the orc had led them some distance down a snaking passage, she said, "A giant twice as tall as I am, with blue skin and yellow hair and eyes, came to Orv—your ‘world'—before us. Have you seen him?"
Nesteruk exploded into a run.
Startled, both Kagur and Holg faltered. Then she sprinted after the boy. Behind her, the shaman started a prayer but stopped reciting when Nesteruk vanished around a bend. Holg presumably couldn't hurl the magic at a target he could no longer see.
Kagur realized she too might well fail to stop the boy. Unless she caught up quickly, he could easily give her the slip.
The lantern swinging, her knee twinging, she made herself dash even faster. When she rounded the turn, the green light washed over Nesteruk squirming into a crack in the wall. In another moment, she likely would have run right past without ever noticing the opening, and could never have wriggled through even if she had.
She grabbed the boy by the forearm, heaved him back out into the larger tunnel, and slammed him face-first into the wall. He gasped. She pressed her shield against his back to pin him in place, yanked the flint knife from his waist, and tossed it clattering to the other side of the passage.
"What was the idea?" she asked. "To run and fetch other orcs to kill us?"
"No!" he gasped. "I just wanted to get away."
"Why? I told you Holg and I wouldn't hurt you if you obeyed."
"I know, and I wanted to believe, even though your long knife is made of the same stuff as the giant's axe. But then you asked about him!"
Kagur grunted. "He's done some harm to your tribe?"
"He killed three of our warriors on the trail. The axe chopped all the way through their bodies!"
"Then be glad I came here to kill him."
Holg rounded the bend in the passage. Squinting, he asked, "What was that all about?"
"A misunderstanding," Kagur said. "Nesteruk is going to lead us properly from now on. Aren't you, orc?"
"Yes," the boy replied.
She backed away from him. "Then get on with it."
As they stalked onward, Kagur practically itched with the urge to ask more questions. But Nesteruk still looked skittish and mistrustful. She didn't want to spook him and set him running all over again, nor was she certain she could trust any answer she wormed out of him.
First, she told herself, get to the last cave. Then you can wring more answers out of him.
Eventually, they made another turn and found a slope in front of them. A shaft of light fell through the opening at the top.
The radiance dazzled Kagur. But it was clear and clean in a way that even Holg's most potent magic couldn't quite reproduce, and even as she threw up her arm to protect her eyes, she felt some fundamental part of her opening to it like a flower.
Using his grubby, broken-nailed hands to aid him, Nesteruk scrambled up the rise, and the humans followed. They all stepped through the opening and out onto a rocky hillside.
Though she knew it wasn't so, Kagur felt like she was dreaming yet again. For it appeared there truly was a sun hanging in a blue sky above her and blazing too brightly for anyone to look at it straight on.
The sunshine gleamed on the lake at the center of the country below. If Kagur could trust her sense of distance and scale, that deep blue expanse was by far the largest body of water she'd ever seen, just as the lands around it were by far the greenest.
"We can't be back on the surface," she said. Everything, from the wisps of cloud to the scent of vegetation on the balmy breeze—real plants, not nasty mold and such—insisted it was so.
"We're not," said Holg. "If you recall, Lady Ssa said the Vaults of Orv were bigger than even the largest caves of Sekamina. I thought I understood what she meant, but apparently, I still underestimated. At any rate, turn around and look behind us."
Frowning, Kagur did, at steep brown rocky hillsides and crags that climbed up and up, gradually turning into something she'd grown wearily familiar with: a cavern wall. The wall just started to curve outward into a ceiling at the place where she lost it in the haze that was also the sky.
"I see," Kagur said, and turning once more, she noticed other things that had escaped her first astonished gawking. Shapes—birds, she assumed—soared and circled lazily high above. Most of the greenness had a bumpy texture that indicated dense forests. Hidden inside one of them, something that was surely a sizable animal gave a mournful croaking call.
"I got you here," Nesteruk said. "Now, you go right." He sprang forward. Kagur reached out for him, but her clutching fingers fell short.
Nesteruk threw himself headlong down an especially steep section of the hillside, raising a cloud of dust as he tumbled. Kagur had no chance of keeping up with him unless she was willing to do the same thing and risk more bumps, bruises, and maybe even broken bones in the process, and she realized she wasn't.
For after all, it was by no means certain that Nesteruk even knew Eovath's current location. Whereas she was sure Holg's fetishes could point the way.
The orc sprang up, seemingly unharmed from his rolling descent, and darted left into a stand of pine trees. Kagur lost sight of him a moment later.
"Well," said Holg, "that was unfortunate."
"You could have stopped him with magic," Kagur answered.
"And you could have put an arrow in him. But I guess neither of us actually felt inclined to strike him down." Holg glanced to the right. "He told us to go this way."
To Kagur's eye, the slopes on the right and left looked pretty much the same, a transitional zone between the crags looming behind her and the forests in the bowl-shaped land below. Frowning, she replied, "But we don't know why. I'd rather have your magic guide us."
To Eovath. She imagined how it would feel to finally drive her father's sword into his vitals and shivered with anticipation.
Chapter Eighteen
Eovath
As Kagur and Holg headed down into the lowlands, the air grew steadily warmer, until it was hotter than the tundra even at the height of summer, and they pulled off their mantles and stuffed them in their backpacks. Still, sweat trickled down from her hairline and soaked her armpits, and she wished she could dispense with her coat of leather as well. But she hoped she was going to need the armor soon.
That was by no means certain, though. Holg's magic could only point them in the right direction. It couldn't tell them how far ahead Eovath was. If their luck was running bad, the frost giant had trekke
d all the way to the other side of the central lake. In that case, they had days or weeks of hiking still ahead of them.
Such a possibility seemed almost intolerable. Against all likelihood, all sane expectation, there was a "sun in the darkness," and Kagur had found it. Now that she had, the need for vengeance burned in her like a fever. She could almost hear her father, Dolok, and all the other Blacklions urging her on.
That eagerness made her impatient with the countless trees towering on every side. In the open country she was used to, a hunter might have spotted Eovath, or the pyramid he'd said he meant to seek beneath the second sun, from miles away. In this place, she could sometimes see no farther than she could throw a stone.
Holg, however, predictably found everything about the country fascinating. She didn't blame him for kneeling to consider mounds of droppings or big, clawed tracks in the sod. Despite the nervous energy goading her ever onward, she too recognized the importance of gleaning what they could about the larger beasts in the area. Such knowledge could save their lives. But it set her teeth on edge when he paused to squint at dragonflies the length of her forearm whirring past on glimmering wings. Or at anything else that was strange but harmless, like the star-shaped yellow blossoms growing from a tree with a diamond pattern to its bark and long, dark green leaves flopping like petals from the very top.
"Have you noticed?" he asked. "It was mostly trees around us when we started down—"
"It still is," she said. "That's a tree you're wasting time on right now."
"Is it?" he replied. "Or is it a bigger version of all these ferns on the ground?"
Now that he'd pointed it out, she saw the resemblance. But still: "What difference does it make?"
"I don't know yet. Probably none. But have you noticed there's no birdsong?"
"There are birds. I saw them in the sky when we stepped out of the caves." And sometimes glimpsed them still, when she peered up through a gap in the foliage overhead.
"But no birdsong. I always hoped to, but I never made it far enough south to see jungle. For a little while, I imagined I was finally getting my chance. But now I suspect this place is even stranger than the Mwangi Expanse."
Kagur had never even heard of "the Mwangi Expanse," but she knew better than to say so and invite a discourse on the subject. "As I said: What difference does it make? Keep moving."
With a snort and a shake of his white-fringed head, he obliged her, and they hiked onward a while longer. Until, despite her avowed disinterest in anything and everything that didn't bring them nearer to Eovath, she faltered in astonishment.
The shadows of the trees—and towering tree-like ferns—had pointed up the slope when she and Holg started down. And even though they'd been traveling for a while, the shadows pointed in exactly the same direction still.
Squinting and shielding her eyes, she peered upward through the mesh of branches and drooping fronds as best she could. Then she was certain.
"What have you noticed?" asked Holg.
"This sun doesn't move."
The old man pondered that for a moment. Then he said, "I don't suppose it could rise and set, could it? It would bump into the cavern walls."
His seeming lack of amazement at her discovery irked her. Stifling the feeling as best she could, she said, "So it's always light here."
"Apparently so, which makes it seem a strange place for a god of chaos and destruction like Rovagug to work some monstrous evil. But there must be a reason."
Kagur grunted. "Let's catch up to Eovath before he has a chance to show us what it is."
Gradually, as she and Holg marched onward, she realized the seemingly perpetual noon was putting one part of her at odds with another. She'd been exerting herself for a long while, first in the tunnels and pit, and now here in the "Vault." Her body felt sore and awkward, and her belly felt hollow.
And yet, to a Kellid born to the rhythms of day and night and of roaming across the plains, it would also feel strange to make camp while the sun was at its zenith. Despite her weariness, she suspected she wouldn't be able to relax if she did.
Just a little farther, she told herself. A little closer to killing Eovath. Then maybe I'll be able to rest.
A pace or two ahead of Holg, she pushed through a tangle of shoulder-high ferns that grew thickly enough to make walking difficult. A cloud of gnats rose from the fronds. She was still swiping them away from her face when she stepped into the clearing beyond. Maybe that was why, just for a moment, she mistook the creature on her right for a boulder or rock formation covered in dull green moss. Then it lumbered around to face her.
The reptile was as big as a mammoth, if not bigger. It was unquestionably longer, thanks to a snakelike tail with spikes on the end. A double row of triangular plates ran all the way up that tail, over its high, rounded back, and down to its comparatively small head. Its deep-set eyes glared at the intruders.
"So this is what Tolguth and the Vault have in common," Holg breathed. "No wonder the mapmakers named it that. And perhaps I understand what the god of fearsome beasts finds interesting in this place."
As he finished speaking, Kagur spotted something that made her feel slightly less imperiled. "This ‘fearsome beast' eats grass. It has some hanging out of its mouth."
"Then let's stop disturbing it and let it get back to its meal."
"Right." But Kagur didn't want to retrace her steps. If the reptile decided to charge while she and Holg were tangled up in the undergrowth, it would be difficult to run or fight. "Let's slowly work our way around the left edge of the clearing."
They made it halfway, with the huge reptile turning ponderously to keep them in front of it. Then the sunlight dimmed.
Startled, Kagur glanced up despite the menace hulking just a few paces away. The sun hadn't shot across the sky in an instant and found itself a horizon to sink behind. Instead, it was simply fading like a fire burning down to embers, only far more quickly.
The reptile must surely be accustomed to the sudden advent of twilight here in its cavern home. Still, as if the change had inflamed its suspicion that the humans meant to harass it into outright certainty, it started forward. The tail with its bony spikes hitched higher into the air.
Kagur and Holg whirled and ran. By the time she took four strides, dusk gave way to night, with only stars—or something like them—shining between the leafy branches and fronds overhead to provide a trace of light.
The ground trembled. She glanced back. Despite its bulk, the reptile was coming on fast. Maybe she could outrun it. She doubted Holg could.
"Go right!" she gasped. Possibly expecting her to do the same, Holg obeyed. She veered left, let out a shout, and the creature pounded after her.
As she dashed on, she looked for trees or tree-ferns growing close enough together that her huge pursuer wouldn't be able to squeeze between them. She couldn't spot any amid the gloom.
But animals were afraid of fire! She tore at the wrappings covering her shield. They fell away, and Holg's cool flames leaped forth. She pivoted, bellowed a war cry, and shoved the burning shield at the onrushing reptile's face.
Then, as it kept pounding closer, she realized that, like a charging mammoth, such a huge animal might have difficulty stopping suddenly even if it wanted to. She threw herself to one side barely in time to avoid being trampled.
The gigantic reptile thundered past and wheeled, orienting on her once again. Now! Now was the time for it to notice and back away from the fire.
Perhaps considering such a course, it hesitated. Then the spiked tail whirled through the air. Kagur dodged. The tail thudded into the ground, then, flinging clumps of sod and dirt, immediately heaved back up for another strike.
As she scrambled backward, she tried to think of what to do. The fire hadn't scared the reptile. She doubted she could either outfight or outrun it—not in the dark on unfamiliar ground, not when she was tired and hungry and still ached from the bruising she'd taken in the pit. What did that leave?
; She could only think of one thing. The creature might be able to run as fast as she could, but it wasn't as nimble and couldn't change direction as rapidly.
She sprinted toward it.
The spiked tail whirled in a horizontal arc. She dived underneath the stroke, scrambled up, and dashed onward along the creature's flank. Now that she was in close, she felt an impulse to draw her sword and cut, but she resisted. Stick to the plan!
The reptile shuffled around in a circle to find her again. She allowed it a glimpse, then charged up the other side of its scaly form, though she had to stop short to avoid another hammering tail strike arcing out of the gloom. The dirt it threw up spattered her face.
At the start of her next dash, she faked left and then ran right. At the beginning of the fourth, she used a double fake.
She wondered if she'd yet succeeded in confusing the beast or tiring it out. But truly, it scarcely mattered. She couldn't keep this up much longer. She was panting, and her pulse pounded in her throat. Her knee throbbed, threatening to turn her desperate sprints into hobbling.
"Blacklion!" she snarled, then raced down the length of the reptile's body and dodged the sweeping tail one more time. As her pursuer began another turn, she yanked her arm free of the straps on the inside of the shield, hurled the fiery shield spinning away in one direction, and scurried in the opposite one. Wincing at the rustling of the fronds but unable to prevent it, she dived into a patch of ferns.
The gigantic reptile finished turning, and then, as she'd hoped, lumbered after the firelight. Once it reached it, it looked down at the shield in perplexity or disappointment, then wheeled back around.
Kagur held her breath when the creature peered in her direction. But it evidently couldn't see her, for after some more unsuccessful searching, it made a grumbling sort of noise and prowled off into the dark.
She gave it time to wander farther away before breaking cover to retrieve the shield. Now, she supposed, she needed to find Holg, but the skinny old man came out of the gloom and found her first.
"I didn't realize you meant to take all the danger on yourself," Holg said, his tone vaguely accusatory.
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